October 5-7, 2018. The All-Russian Conference on Small Towns and Historic Settlements

3 September – 7 October 2018 Nizhny Novgorod Oblast

On October 5–7, 2018, the All-Russian Conference for Small Towns and Historic Settlements named “Revitalization of Small Towns through the Involvement of the Local Population in Cultural Events” will take place in the town of Vyksa, Nizhny Novgorod Region.

Organizers of the event are the OMK-Uchastie foundation and the Ministry of Construction, Housing, and Utilities of the Russian Federation. The project is being implemented thanks to a grant from the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society provided by the Presidential Grants Foundation, with the support of the Government of Nizhny Novgorod Region and the administration of the town of Vyksa, United Metallurgical Company and the Eight Lines design bureau. The Agency for Strategic Development “CENTER” is acting as the event program management and is responsible for the semantic content of the project.

The All-Russian Competition for Small Towns and Historic Settlements held in spring by the Ministry of Construction of Russia in strategic partnership with the CENTER agency showed that creating a comfortable urban environment is a complex social task that must be accomplished by joint efforts of the state, town communities and business groups. This has particular relevance in single-industry towns, which have less potential for development than towns with a diversified economy.

You can view the program on the official conference website.

You can watch a live broadcast of the event on the YouTube channel of the CENTER agency.

The conference will be the first major event of all-Russian scale with foreign participation according to the competition results. It will be devoted to the mechanisms of developing public spaces. The main purpose of the event will be to promote the priority of creating a comfortable environment through comprehensive coverage of domestic and international practices:

- demonstration of best Russian examples in creating a comfortable urban environment; - popularization of participatory design as one of the most effective tools for “resetting” problem towns; - studying global trends adapted to Russian conditions; - discussion of the most problematic issues of forming a comfortable environment in small Russian towns, with identification of problems in historic settlements.

As part of the conference, leading Russian and foreign experts in the field of public spaces development, development of single-industry towns, participatory design, financing mechanisms, and sociocultural programming, as well as representatives of executive authorities will speak.